A review by chuckri
Outside Shot: Big Dreams, Hard Times, and One County's Quest for Basketball Greatness by Keith O'Brien

2.0

Some chapters, particularly those dealing with historical background, were fairly interesting, but for the most part this story could have been written about almost any high school team in the country. Other teams wouldn't, obviously, have as much basketball talent, but all high school teams have players who go through as much or more than the Scott County players in this book. Also, even though Coach Hicks has a lot of high school wins, I just don't see him as having the qualities of a coach who realizes there is more to being a coach/teacher than wins and losses. Never once did he talk to his kids about their lives outside of basketball. He didn't show a concern for developing character or for teaching any life-long lessons through his sport.

I kept expecting some theme to develop in this story, but it never came. The story mostly chronicles what happened during one season of high school basketball. None of the characters show any growth or development. The chapters on parents trying to redshirt their middle school kids and on athletes transferring schools provided great opportunities to expand the scope of the book. But all we got instead was repeating meaningless comments or conversations some of the characters had. This book is much overrated.